It seems that the ever-improving remote collaboration capabilities should enable tech employees to spread out of these isolated, high-rent silos and base themselves where-ever is convenient.

If I wanted to live in Ohio on a farm and work at Google or Facebook or some startup, why should that be a problem? Assuming a fast and reliable internet link (a big assumption for some areas, I understand), combined with video chat, real-time document tools, and even those new remote-worker collaboration robots (I forget what they are called), it seems like the benefit outweighs the cost in almost every way.

I understand that founders need to network with VCs and Angels, and so that drives centralized locations, but even so, if I had a good pitch, why couldn't I just travel to meet them and then return to base my startup in Ohio (or wherever), hiring top tech workers remotely, be they in the vallery, SF, NY, or the Yukon Territory (again, that thing about the internet connection...)